“Now nine albums along a slow and steady career, Anubis Gate returns after six years of radio silence with Interference, teasing a new level of sonic diversity. With great prog, comes great power—or at least that’s what I want! So take your pills and put your helmet on cause Anubis Gate’s cosmic aspirations hope to launch you pleasantly into the great unknown.” Prog in a gated place.
“Four years Ok Goodnight has pondered on their whimsical blend of art rock, math rock, and prog. Each member fresh off a stint at Berklee, and with frontwoman Casey Lee Williams additional years of experience as the voice of the RWBY soundtracks, Ok Goodnight felt it best to take a low and slow approach for this full-length follow-up to their debut.” The fox and the prog,
“I admit, I avoided this band in the past because weed pun names rub me the wrong way. I have nothing against hazy plant explorations—I dabble—but you can only laugh so many times at joke titles like “Kief Castle” or Stoned Jesus. Heck I’m sure in the right state of mind I’ve even made my own joke band names. Chicago’s REZN isn’t here to joke around though. Eschewing comical escapism, this young quartet aims for a more conscious and guided meditation.” Two bongs may make a light.
“I hold concept albums dearly as a style that occupies many of my most treasured proggy excursions. Cautiously, though, many a lesser outing bloat the barrel of this contentious niche. Confidently Lunarߵs third full-length, The Illusionist, inhabits this realm—a dramatic telling of a magician’s struggle with what his work has made of his own life. We all ask this question to ourselves of a great many things in this world. Was it worth it? Was it worth it to park between the lines when the lifted F-150 went and snagged three spots? Was it worth it to pen 700 or so words when the tags read deathcore?” Deathcore and the Moon.
Riverside is back with their first album in nearly five years. After all the change since their last album was released—a pandemic, a new guitar player, political polarization in their homeland—will ID.Entity continue to be aggressively chill or something different?
In anticipation of their upcoming album, here’s a helpful primer on prog-metal stalwarts, Riverside (they live in a van down by the river).
![Arthur Brown – Monster’s Ball [Things You Might Have Missed 2022]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Arthur-Brown_Monsters-Ball_01.jpg)
When I approached His Thiccness Lord Steel about writing up a TYMHM about the new album from shock rock godfather Arthur Brown, his response was much like one of his gorilla jabs: swift, accurate and painful (at least for Grier). “He’s the original Alice Cooper,” Steel said. “And by extension, the real King of Diamonds.” It was with these words of simian wisdom that I set out to dive deeper into this English octogenarian’s latest album Monster’s Ball. Of monsters and madmen.
“It’s not easy being John Cobbet, legendary underground guitarist of Vhöl, ex(ish)-Ludicra,] ex-The Lord Weird Slough Feg, and mastermind of Hammers of Misfortune. Along with his long-collaborating partner Sigrid Sheie (also of Vhöl), Cobbet has, at his own pace, pumped out eclectic success after eclectic success with his rotating Hammers crew.” Hammers time.
“The average age of all the cells in an adult human is somewhere between seven and ten years old. We constantly replace parts of ourselves, so that you are mostly a different person every decade or so. That means if you really, like, think about it, no band that lasts longer than ten years has any of its original lineup left. This is how I explain In the Woods… to myself. The outfit is in its fourth decade of shuffling through lineups and genres, with drummer Anders Kobro and the ellipsis in their name the only constants.” Lost among the trees.
“Maybe it’s just me but, if I were looking to quote ‘rave reviews’ of a band, I wouldn’t necessarily single out the phrase “Earnest, vibrant music specked with impressive nuance.” Nevertheless, this is the phrase that a promo blurb writer selected from our review of Sammal’s last effort, Suuliekki. Treble Yell, who penned that review in March 2018, had gone on an entirely non-suspicious but very sudden and permanent sabbatical by the time I was press ganged into service later that year. But he clearly enjoyed, without loving, Suuliekki. Since then, Sammal has shed both its keyboard player and bassist. Perhaps you, like me, think that for a band like Sammal, which trades in progressive 70s-inspired neo-folk, both of those positions are fairly critical. Well, these three Finns laugh in your face.” Folk is not afraid of you.
